You are the etc...

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From the Dumb Britain section of this fortnight's Private Eye:

Weakest Link, BBC2

Anne Robinson: In London's congestion charge, which country's diplomats have collected the most penalties?
Contestant (who reached the final): Wales.

In the Buff

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Found myself talking to Europe Minister Geoff Hoon on Monday and discussed an impending spell at German tabloid Bild am Sonntag I'm taking up.

"Very good," said Hoon. "I'm a big supporter of sending our journalists abroad. And leaving them there."

Dead ringers

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This is Westminster Care Services Minister Ivan Lewis, who recently admitted his marriage of 16 years is over and he and his wife Juliette are getting a divorce. And below him is Maggie Gibb, a Labour member of Bury Council and someone who, according to the local press, is rumoured to be having a relationship with Mr Lewis.

No idea whether this is true or just scurrilous gossip, and that doesn't concern us here.

No, I just thought: don't they look spookily similar to a Kwik Save version of Lembit Öpik and Siân Lloyd?

Beer, wine, whisky, brandy, you name it

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Radio rottweiler John Humphrys has admitted he came close to becoming an alcoholic while working as a young journalist.

Alas, he gave up the bottle at the age of 32, meaning it wasn't the booze talking when he called me a "c--t" last year.

"The towers are 445 feet high, the main span being 3,240 feet at a point where the river is 1 mile wide at high tide"

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The latest in a string of increasingly baffling press releases arrives from William Graham, the Conservative AM for South Wales East and the party's education spokesman. Responding to a Highways Agency order restricting the weight of vehicles in one lane of the Severn Bridge from next month, Mr Williams says:

"The weight restrictions, which are a precautionary measure, follow the initial findings of inspections of the main suspension cables on the M48 Bridge. A similar inspection of the Forth Road Bridge in 2004 revealed corrosion inside the cables. There is no risk to the public and no plans to close the bridge. This is a precautionary measure, which is only expected to affect a small number of HGVs and it will not restrict HGVs up to 44 tonnes from using the bridge in lane 1 in either direction. The M4 Second Severn Crossing is the main route for heavy vehicles travelling to South Wales. On an average weekday about 3,000 HGVs use the M48 Severn Bridge but only around 100 use lane 2. The M48 Severn Bridge has carried over 300,000,000 vehicles since it was opened by HM The Queen on 8 September 1966. The towers are 445 feet high, the main span being 3,240 feet at a point where the river is 1 mile wide at high tide. Surveys on the Severn Bridge started during April 2006 and will continue until early next year".

Which is all very well, good and informative - but you have to say, such calming releases really are the responsibility of the Assembly Government's superannuated press corps. Opposition AMs should be trying to whip up journalists and the public into a frenzy of apocalyptic traffic doom, surely?

Is Mr Graham already gearing himself up for government next year...?

Green Green grass of moan

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A proposed new 'mega mosque' for up to 40,000 worshippers in West Ham is in trouble already - Stephen Green, the Carmarthenshire-based director of pressure group Christian Voice, and spokesman for all of the world's one billion Christians, is spearheading a campaign to block it.

If this follows the success of Mr Green's previous campaigns - closing down Jerry Springer: The Opera, banning Gay Pride Day, stopping the civil partnerships act being passed, re-introducing the death penalty and breaking up the Gay Police Association, those behind the mosque may as well give up now.

To be fair, Mr Green has had one success, being single-handedly responsible for the Pakistan cricket team forfeiting the fourth test match against England in the summer.

The height of political discourse

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Bloggers, we are constantly told, are turning both the mainstream media and standard political discourse on its head. Filling the vacuum left by broadcast outlets and the so-called 'dead tree press', the blogosphere has stepped into to create an entirely new arena for a newly media-enfranchised, politically-literate public to swap ideas, challenge widely-held preconceptions and engage in ideological and policy debate.

Just to prove that, one of Britain's most popular bloggers, Guido Fawkes - aka right-wing activist and former computer games champion Paul Staines - broke the story that the director of think-tank Demos, Madeleine Bunting, was leaving to rejoin the Guardian.

Here's some of the comments his readers left on the blog in response (bear in mind these were moderated by the site operator before going on the site, and the asterisks are mine):

She's such a n*bhead.

While she's on gardening leave she could do worse than stick her bonce in a burkha for a month and consider the coming reality.

You know there IS something appealing about her lower lip...

After a couple of pints,you would though wouldn't you. Has she got big t*ts?

This photograph makes a bad hair day look like a trip to Vidal Sassoon or(insert other trendy in crowd hairsnippers).

Aaahh...the blogosphere. Let a thousand flowers boom!

Twpsyn

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Just finishing a short on Cymdeithas' latest merry wheeze, four of its members having their collars felt today after spray painting on a shoe shop in Aberystwyth and then occupying it for 30 minutes until the Old Bill arrived. The protest, at the new Ystwyth Retail Park in the town, was against the fact that none of the signs were in Welsh and etc etc etc.

Defending the occupation of Brantano, and presumably terrifying the staff, Cymdeithas’ Welsh Language Act spokesperson Sian Howys says:

"Staff would not have to face any such protests if there were adequate linguistic legislation in place."

Because the 17-year-old college students who predominantly staff shoe stores on a Saturday afternoon are precisely the people who make decisions on Welsh language legislation. Sigh.

The Tao of Holloway

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Two weeks ago I wrote about how former Wales footballer Vinnie Jones wanted to become a Conservative MP. Today Ian Holloway, the endearingly mad Plymouth Argyle manager, has his tuppence-worth on the subject in his BBC Online column:

"Ha ha! He likes wearing a bit of tweed as well, doesn't he? He could do a lot better job than half of them, so good luck to him.

If you ask him a question he won't skirt around the edges. He'll give you a straight answer to a straight question. He talks a lot of sense.

And you wouldn't want to be Tony Blair trying to have an argument with him. You'd have to have a referee there.

I'd quite fancy having a go at that myself. I've got to find something else to do for a living, because I'm rubbish at this management lark!"

If you like that kind of thing, there's more of Holloway's quotes here.

"Denise Denise, oh with your eyes so blue"

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Another doff of the cap in the direction of Labour’s Conwy AM Denise Idris Jones.

On Tuesday she told First Minister Rhodri Morgan in the Senedd that: “There are grave concerns about the future of the hospital, in particular the future of the breast cancer service, in Llandudno.”

True. But in March this year, in her enthralling Bangor and Anglesey Mail column, she explained the hospital re-organisation to her readers thus:

“The main recommendation is that Acute Services should be contained within the three main hospitals, Bangor, Bodelwyddan and Wrexham. Other hospital provision is subject to some reconstruction.”

So the concerns are so grave that Denise thought them not even worse mentioning!

How politics works

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Best line from today's story about Culture Minister Alun Pugh blowing £2,000 on the rights to use a picture of a Scrabble board on his Christmas card? The comment from Shadow Culture Minister Owen John Thomas:

"I find it highly irresponsible and shall be getting in touch with Ieuan [Plaid leader Ieuan Wyn Jones] to see if we should be calling for his resignation."

Decisive and statesmanlike...

"This ever changing world in which we live in"

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So a Conservative frontbencher is attacking a leading Labour politician for suggesting that Muslim women should remove their veils. Oliver Letwin has told Jack Straw he does not want to "slip gradually" into a situation where we "do not allow differences because they create separations".

My head hurts. I'm going for a sit down.

Licentious behaviour

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The final word on the striptease scandal that rocked this year's Royal Welsh Show, courtesy of a letter from James Morgan of Cardiff in today's Western Mail:

"Licentious behaviour has no place within the context or proximity of cattle"

Amen to that.

"Wow!"

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Has David Davies been giving lessons in political correctness to Bulgarian MPs on one of his many jaunts to Eastern Europe?

"Hey diddle-diddle, there's a fella in the middle and I think he's pulling my string"

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Another new blog from the staff of Wales on Sunday who - let's be frank - have a lot of time to kill. This time it's Chief Football Writer Andy Rose who will be casting his wry eye over the world of football, as you'd expect.

That's the idea, anyway. Sports Editor Rippers was supposed to be writing about cooking before deciding to turn his blog into a full-on confessional.

Update: Andy Rose has asked me to point out he does not have a lot of time to kill.

What a picture

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Was that Alun Cairns AM snapping away with his camera at David Cameron from the audience during his stand-up routine in Bournemouth yesterday? I do believe it was.